Tuesday, August 25, 2015

The onion
(Allium cepa) (Latin 'cepa' = onion), also known as the bulb onion or common
onion, is used as a vegetable and is the most widely cultivated species of the
genus Allium. Actually, it is not this bulb onion, which is used to make
tasteful sambar…. ..it is the smaller ones – ‘the shallot’ (Allium cepa var.
aggregatum).

Onions make people cry
– at times, it is not that property of
Onions that makes Indians cry …. ~ but thespiralling increase in prices reaching
Rs.80 per kg and more that does. A few
years back, when onions became the butt of cartoons, there was this amazing deal that Groupon offered in
India. People keep telling that you can
purchase things at unbelievably low prices on the net…. Groupon India, home of
India’s biggest discounts and best deals online- offered something totally
unrealistic and unbelievable. A peep on
to their website revealed that lunched in April 2011, Groupon (formerly
Crazeal) claims to feature one daily deal on the best things to do, see, eat,
and buy across India. They state that it is not
about being cheap! It’s about presenting their customers with the best
quality merchants promoting themselves in a truly crazy fashion! At a time when
prices sky-rocketed the e-commerce firm Groupon sought to boost its popularity
by offering a mouth-watering deal by pricing it at Rs 9 a kilo.

In 2010, there was dramatic
rise in the cost of onions across markets in India. The crisis was caused by
errant rainfall in the onion producing regions which led to a shortage of onion
production. The crisis caused political tension in the country and was
described as "a grave concern" by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Now the prices of onions
have been skyrocketing to over Rs 80 per kg in the Capital and theAamAadmi Party government has sought
intervention by the Union government to overcome the crisis.The government has
sought the Centre’s assistance in procuring bulk supplies of onions from states
like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh to meet the demand in Delhi. The
unabated price rise has also scuppered the Delhi government’s plan to sell
onions through mobile vans.Delhi’s Food and Civil Supplies Minister Asim Ahmed
Khan on Sunday urged the Union agriculture minister to facilitate bulk
procurement of onions in order to curb rising prices. The Food and Civil
Supplies Minister said the Center’s support is required to supplement the
efforts of Delhi government for ensuring sufficient supplies of onions in order
to contain their retail prices in the market.The move comes after facing flak
for not procuring onions in advance despite being cautioned by Nafed.

For the past three months,
central government agency Nafed and the Union Ministry of Agriculture had
repeatedly written to the Delhi government alerting it about the imminent price
rise of onions and potatoes. The agency had suggested that the government
should stock up by buying onions at Rs 19 per kg. However, according to Nafed,
the Delhi government did not bother to reply to these letters, thereby forcing
Delhiites to buy onions at Rs 70-80 per kg in the open market.

Today, comes the news that
wholesale prices of onion fell below the Rs 50 per kg mark at the Lasalgaon in
Maharashtra, Asia’s biggest onion market, due to curbs on exports and fear of
action against hoarding.Even at Azadpurmandi in Delhi, wholesale onion price
declined by Rs 3-5 per kg to Rs 53 today on increase in arrival of new crop
from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.However, retail onion prices across the
country continue to rule as high as Rs 80 per kg.

At Lasalgaon, which sets the
price trend across the country, the wholesale onion price declined to Rs 48.5
per kg today from Rs 57 per kg last week, according to the data maintained by
Nashik-based National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation
(NHRDF).Also, fear of action against hoarding along with MMTC importing 10,000
tonnes of onion helped, they added.On Monday, the Centre had asked the
Maharashtra government to crack down on hoarders and take adequate measures.

Thanks to increased arrival
of new crop from in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, the wholesale prices in Delhi
markets have declined by 3-5 per kg to Rs 53 today, Azadpur Agricultural
Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) member said.The arrival of early kharif crop
of onion in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh has picked up momentum, which would
help improve supply across the country till harvesting of new crop begins in
Maharashtra, the country's largest onion growing state, from October onwards.